Body Positivity: Love Lives Here.

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“You are not a mistake. You are not a problem to be solved. But you won’t discover this until you are willing to stop banging your head against the wall of shaming and caging and fearing yourself.”

86% of women worldwide are not content with their body and barely 2% of women would describe themselves as beautiful. Shell-shocked, aren’t you? We humans often indulge in the futile discussion of heaven and hell. Ironically, neither heaven lies up above the sky nor hell lies beneath the earth. We possess the power to create heaven or hell on earth itself based on our mindset. If you aim to experience heavenly bliss, you simply require to accept yourself the way you are without worrying about the external elements like body weight, complexion, height and beyond. In simple words, Self-love is one of the greatest gifts one can give to oneself.

Trying to “fix” the body is one such mistake that the majority of people commit thereby ending in hating themselves. Louise Hay once quoted aptly, “You have been criticizing yourself for years and it hasn’t worked. Try approving of yourself and see what happens.” and I could not agree more. The reason is that if we lay the foundation of our self-worth on physical aspects related to our external personality that continues to change with time, we will end up riding an emotional roller coaster transcending body shaming, body obsession and what not. When we are unkind with our body, nothing gets changed. When it comes to shaping a positive mindset, a lot hinges on the way you choose to interact with your body.

What is Body Positivity?

Body positivity refers to the assertion that all people deserve to have a positive body image regardless of how society and popular culture view ideal shape, size and appearance. Body positivity is such a social movement that was initiated aiming at empowerment and meant to shed light on the plight related to the self-worth of not merely plus size women but men as well while challenging the ways through which society perceives the physical body. This overwhelming body positivity movement advocates the notion of accepting all kinds of bodies regardless of size, physical ability, gender, appearance or race. The candid root of Body positivity lies in the movement related to the fat acceptance to Advance Fat Acceptance as well as to the National Association.

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Decoding the Nuances of Body Positivity

The goal of the movement is to address unrealistic beauty standards and to build the confidence of oneself and others. The body movement sets forth the notion that beauty is a sheer construct of society and proposes that this construct must not infringe upon anyone’s ability to feel self-worth or confidence. The idea surrounding the body positivity movement is centred around the notion that people need to love themselves to the fullest while accepting their physical traits. Though body positivity is recognized as the celebration encircling one’s physical appearance the way it is, it is no more common to see those modern women are now greatly encouraged to advocate the normalization of menstruation, bodily fluids, body hair, and beyond to challenge the preconceived notions related to an appearance of a woman.

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Body Positivity: A Journey to Self-love

The movement related to body positivity generally focuses mainly on women, accepting the fact that societal beauty benchmarks are more prevalent in the context of women than ironically what they are to men. Men do, however, often face similar societal pressures as women to fit a mould of a certain prototype of the “ideal” masculine man. Judging or criticising a person by his/her physical appearance can negatively affect both mental and physical aspects of a person’s life. When people of all ages, both young and old, experience any sort of bullying, especially body shaming, one’s mental health suffers. If an individual is suffering from the ruthless experience of being body shamed, such an experience may force an individual to reconsider self-worth and the whole idea related to presenting oneself.

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Being body positive means doing things to challenge body shaming. It is about action as much as it is about thought. According to a source, body positivity can be encouraged by focusing on body-positive language, saying reminders that all bodies are lovable out loud, talking about one’s body positivity journey, create things like movies, books, video games etc keeping all bodies in mind and speaking out when witnessing body negativity.

Undeniably, in the wake of constant exposure to the unrealistic standards of beauty put forward by beauty magazines, TV and social media, the entire effort to maintain self-confidence and self-worth becomes more challenging. Nevertheless, at the same time, the worldwide global wave of body positivity continues to inspire people to accept the way they are. In a nutshell, encouraging acceptance of self and others regardless of body shape and size helps decrease bullying and judgment among kids. It also helps protect against a negative self-image and unhealthy attempts at changing body shape and weight. Let us remind ourselves that all bodies are unique and beautiful and strive to make the world an equally better place for everyone.

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“My body is not yours to critique and discuss. My body is not yours for consumption. My body is my vessel. An archive of experiences. A weapon that has fought battles only I understand. A library of love, pain, struggle, victory, and mystery.”